Right from the girls' first meeting with "Mama" in that abandoned house in the woods I was in love. The opening credits, hauntingly bittersweet music over crude crayon renderings of their life in the wild thereafter, dug the hooks in all that much deeper. From start to finish, Mama retains a feeling of dark loveliness.

I dare you not to shiver the first time that you see the girls in their feral state. Mama avoids the typical "the children are sinister" model wherein they all have orange eyes and stare at the camera while everything around them bleeds ichor. Here, the girls are scary because they truly are disturbed: Lily especially acts quite inhuman most of the time and hardly says a word in her hushed little voice.

Then, of course, there's "Mama" herself. For much of the film she remains indistinct, a shadow in the background or a chilling sourceless voice. She's scary as hell, but once you see her in full glory she becomes something else, she becomes terrifying, deadly, and loathsome - and beautiful. Maybe it's del Toro's hand in the process or perhaps it's simply all Muschietti behind it, but Mama is both so wretched and beautiful that you cannot take your eyes off of her face, ghastly thought it may be. She's a monster to be sure but a monster born out of such tragedy that her vile nature exudes such intense loss that you want to feel for her, despite what your logical mind tells you.

Del Toro's hand is apparent throughout in the small sinister touches of insects and childhood innocence turned morbid and if the director, Andrés Muschietti, isn't a quantum version of the man I am very surprised.

As a horror lover, this gets my absolute seal of approval, well executed with true scares and real emotion. Go see it. Now. Now, do it. Doitnow.

Something moving out of the corner of your eye, a noise under the bed, clothes in a closet brushing together even though there's no breeze to disturb them. Mama knows what really scares you and keeps it coming hard. Mama is the kind of movie that uses almost every old cliche in the book, but does it so well that you understand why they became cliches in the first place. This movie has jump-scares a-plenty but they are the best jump-scares I've seen in years, maybe decades. The jump scares also manage to serve a purpose: you get so used to jump scares that when something really does happen, it hits all the harder because you aren't expecting it even though you know it must be coming, if you take my meaning.

I also want to nominate Mama for some kind of award for having the balls to follow its premise all the way to the its conclusion. The last American horror movies I can think of that did that were The Ring and Jeepers Creepers, more than ten years ago (and The Ring doesn't really count).

I watched this recently. From the very beginning I was hooked. I honestly thought this is going to be one for the records an absolute classic and was loving it. That is until about half way through and you get to see Mama, then it all gets far too cgi Harry Potter and I almost wanted to cry having enjoyed the first half so much. I'm sorry to disagree with the above, but I honestly could not believe how fast it went from being amazing to upsetting like the flick of a switch.

I watched this recently. From the very beginning I was hooked. I honestly thought this is going to be one for the records an absolute classic and was loving it. That is until about half way through and you get to see Mama, then it all gets far too cgi Harry Potter and I almost wanted to cry having enjoyed the first half so much. I'm sorry to disagree with the above, but I honestly could not believe how fast it went from being amazing to upsetting like the flick of a switch.

No need to be sorry. The world would be boring if everyone liked the same things.

Personally, I thought that when you finally got to see Mama made the movie. I was afraid that she couldn't possibly live up to all that build up but she did. In fact, the friend I saw it with tensed up in his seat and gasped, "Oh my god!" during that scene.